Stamina
by streetlamp
Summary: Sure, the war is over, but that doesn't mean that a new war doesn't start at the Weasley household between Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione over a couple of lost socks. Jealousy intertwines with the battles when a new visitor catches Hermione's eye. D/H


Hey, welcome to my Dramione fic here! Please, hold the applause. If there's even anyone out there, that is. It's so embarrassing to find out you've been talking to a nonexistent audience. Anyway, enjoy!

A/N: This may not seem like a Dramione at first glance, but once Draco gets on the scene (and he will soon enough) they'll be no doubt in your head that this is a D/H romance. 

R&R, s'il vous plait! 

Chapter 1

It Started with Lost Socks

"Where'd my socks go?" I looked down at Harry and Ron as I stood in front of their chairs in the Weasley's kitchen. Both of them were trying very hard not too laugh, and I was trying very hard not to scream.

"It's not like we took them," Ron managed, his face beginning to turn red under the effort not to laugh. 

"Yeah, really," Harry agreed, avoiding eye contact with me. Ron nodded vigorously. Merlin, the famous Boy-Who-Lived and his best mate were actually two five-year-olds with a secret in disguise.

"Tell me where they are!" I balled my hands into fists, flitting my eyes between each of their sheepish faces.

"I think you'd better ask Crookshanks," Harry managed, nodding up to the Weasleys' twisting staircase. "He would know, I think." Ron let out a loud snort but tried to cover it up as a sneeze.

"Good _bless_ you," I said, rolling my eyes at Ron. He sneezed, my ass.

"Why, thank you, Hermy!" he responded, letting he and Harry both erupt into a huge fit of laughter. I groaned inwardly and headed up the staircase. 

"Hermione?" I turned around as I reached the second floor of the Weasley house to find Bill standing behind me. I kept on forgetting that he was home so he and Fleur would have a place to live where they both felt reasonably comfortable. (He'd told me once that he'd rather die than live in an entire country full of people speaking some language that sounded as if they were gargling their mouthwash.) "Do you know where Fleur is?" His fiancée's name sounded funny when he said it, more like 'floor' than the French word for 'flower.' 

"No, I haven't seen Fleur anywhere," I answered, glancing down the staircase I'd just come up. "She might be talking with your mum about wedding decorations, though. Last I heard the color of the chair covers was being discussed."

Bill rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "That again? How many colors can there be to discuss? Sometimes I wish Floor and my mum were both so colorblind that all the colors would look the same to them. At least then there'd only be a million minus one things to bug me about." 

I laughed before heading up the next flight of stairs towards where my poor little cat should have been wandering around. "Crooky!" I called, peaking into a doorway to see if my cat was in there. "Crookshanks!"

I looked up to the next flight of stairs just as my Crookshanks came trotting down, about three socks tied to each of her legs, one on each ear, and six more stuck to her by magic. "Oh, dear," I sighed, taking my Crookshanks into my arms and reversing the stupid spells Harry and Ron had used on this beautiful, innocent creature. "I don't know why those two hate you so much, Crooky," I said, using my baby voice as I pulled the socks off the cat's ears. "Or rather, I don't know why they hate my socks so much. Just look at the torture they put these things through!" Crookshanks turned his eyes up to me as if I had emotionally bruised him. Seriously, this baby cannot take a joke for the life of him. "Of course, though," I continued, correcting myself, "nothing they did was quite as bad as the embarrassment they put you through." I laughed. I loved Crookshanks, but the thought that I could actually offend him was sort of funny.

"It sounds like she found that sneaky little crook," Ron whispered loudly to Harry in the kitchen, pulling my attention back those two.

Harry snorted. "You think?" he asked sarcastically, and I heard the chair he'd been sitting on squeak as he stood up. 

"Served that beast right, I think," Ron continued as his chair squeaked, announcing his standing, too. "After what he did to _my_ socks. I've still got the shreds somewhere under my bed, but a good lot they'll do for me now…"

"Ron, I think _you_ did that to your socks," Harry countered, laughter audible at the back of his throat.

"Did not!" Ron sounded seriously offended, but I knew better than to believe the moods he worked into his voice. "Why would I do a thing like that to an innocent pair of my own socks?"

Harry laughed before answering. "I don't know. Maybe you were hungry?" 

"Merlin, my own best mate making me out to be some sort of animal!" Harry laughed, but Ron was quick to change the subject. "Anyway, did you take the pictures? I was too busy putting the socks on the cat to see if you were taking pictures of him."

I gasped. They put the poor cat through this adversity, and then they took pictures of him in his humiliation! 

"Yea. Mundungus says he'll be by early tomorrow morning to collect them. He's giving us five sickles for every two photos." 

"Excellent." I heard the sound of a camera rattling around as it passed between their hands. "Hey, Harry?" Ron asked. For once, there was genuine curiosity in his voice. This couldn't be good.

"Yea, Ron?"

"What do you think Mundungus is going to do with these photos?" There was a complete silence before they both burst out in laughter.

As the laughter died down, though, Harry spoke. "Whatever any man does with pictures like these." 

Oh. My. G-d. Those perverts! Those hippogriff-brained, Slytherin-hearted, cruel, inconsiderate _perverts!_ That was the last straw. Ginny was going to hear about this.

I sprinted up the million flights of stairs before reaching Ginny's room. Panting, I banged my fist into her door a few times, straightened my skirt, and brushed my hair over my shoulder as her door swung open.

"Oh, hey Hermione!" Ginny greeted me, stepping aside so I could enter her room. I walked in, Crookshanks still under my arm. 

"Hullo, Ginny," I answered, coming into her room. It was tiny, all right, but comfy all the same. My sleeping bag was lain out across the floor. "We have something to talk about." I plopped down on her bed, stroking Crookshanks' fur. "I'm angry with Harry and Ron."

Ginny grinned knowingly. "And?"

"They attacked Crookshanks with my socks and then took pictures of him. They're selling the photos to Fletcher." I took in a deep breath; I'd said that all in one breath.

I turned my gaze back to Ginny, but her reaction was anything but what I'd been hoping. Her face was free from anger, sorrow, pity, _anything_ like that. No, she was smiling ear-to-ear. "That's bad," she commented through her smile. "That's really, really bad." She giggled lightly, licking her lips as if this was nothing more than good gossip. "Did they apologize?"

"G-d, no." I rolled my eyes at the thought of Ron apologizing. "Of course not."

Ginny's grin got even bigger, if that was even possible. "Then we're eligible to get revenge."

I furrowed my eyebrows. Mrs. and Mr. Weasley were letting me stay at their house all summer; I didn't want to create some kind of havoc just to get revenge on two gits. "I don't know about this…"

"Oh, please, Hermione." Ginny rolled her eyes at me, and for about the millionth time in my life, I felt old and boring. "They haven't _apologized_. If they had, then revenge would be questionable. But since they haven't, we can only get in so much trouble." Seeing that my doubtful expression was still intact, Ginny continued. "If _we_ don't do something, someone _else_ will. It's not like your intruding on our hospitality or something."

I nodded, processing what she was saying. Finally, I spoke. "It sounds like there are rules or something around here for getting revenge." I laughed at the idea, but Ginny only nodded at me. "There're _rules_?" I blinked in surprise, momentarily forgetting to pet Crookshanks. I'd known that the Weasley household was a bit unusual, but rules for getting revenge? That was a bit much.

"Not any that we follow," Ginny explained, but I could see in her eyes that her mind wasn't on what she was telling me; she was already creating ways to get back at Harry and Ron. "The rules are just there to determine our punishment if our mum finds out." 

I nodded, narrowing my eyes. "How many times has she found out?"

Ginny's smile was beginning to look a bit guilty. "Every time so far." I raised my eyebrow, laughing a bit. "But it's always been worth it." 

"What have you done in the past?" I asked, leaning back against the wall. 

Ginny looked off at something behind me, her smile broadening again. "Well… when Ron hung my favorite doll from my ceiling by her neck when I was five years old, I tied his shoelaces to the dinner table that night. He still didn't know how to tie and untie his shoes, so Bill had to untie the laces for him." I giggled at the mental image. "And when Fred and George…" Her smile fell at the memory of Fred, and when I was just about to open my mouth to stop her from continuing, she started speaking again. "When they cut off all my hair in my sleep, I hid their broomsticks on the roof." She smiled weakly as she remembered the incident. "They couldn't find them for weeks, so I went up to the roof myself and took the magic tape I'd used to fasten George's stick off. Then I circled the yard a few times until the two of them saw me and then I flung a couple jinxes at them. The Ministry sent us a letter about underage magic, and mum spanked me for breaking a law, but they took to a habit of complimenting my hair after that." I laughed out loud as she finished her story. 

"I wish I'd been there," I finally managed through laughter. 

"I wish you had, too. But let's make our first retaliation small. They're bound to fight back with something bigger, and then we can really get back." 

I smiled at Ginny, feeling complete gratitude that she was there to help me with this. Harry and Ron were going to pay for this, and I was surer of it now than ever.

**A/N: Again, Draco will be around here in near chapters! Do not panic! **

**I hoped you like the first chapter here, but even if you didn't, review and tell me you hated it! Or lie and tell me you loved it anyway because you love anything I write no matter how much it sucks! Please do! I know you like all the exclamation points down here! I know you think it's peppy! I know you want to REVIEW and tell me you think so! (And also, review and tell me I'm going overboard on asking/ordering you to review if you feel like it!)**


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